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chemistry
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From: "G.P." <G_Popper#NoSpam.Hotmail.Com> Special Category: Top Reasons
chemistry
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Health Watch: The graduate student's guide to self-diagnosis and treatment.
(The 3 a.m. version)
It is not unusual for a grad student to feel strains and stresses in the
body during late night lab marathons. In spite of this fact, there is an
appalling shortage of health clinics open at the hour that these symptoms
usually begin to manifest. In recognition of this deficiency, this
`how-to' list has been compiled to aid the graduate student in this time of
need.
Symptom Probable cause Treatment(*)
======= ============== =========
Aching legs Frequent trips to Move the equipment into
not-so-near neighbouring the lab you are working
labs to use equipments not in. Those with a sense of
found in your own. humor can try asking their
P.I.'s to buy them their
own equipment.
Burning Eyeballs attempting to Confine all gel destaining
sensation in crawl out of your sockets practices to your boss's
eyes in a bid to escape chronic office. (Fumehood?! We
exposure to acetic don't need no stinkin'
acid/methanol vapours that fumehood!)
have equilibrated with the
lab's already volatile
atmosphere.
Inability to Neck injury incurred while Accept as a fact that the
turn head trying to simultaneously moment your back is
watch column not run dry turned, the column will
while playing ``Cat run dry on you anyway.
Shaver'' on the computer. Enjoy your game.
Burning Unsafe use of ethanol Visit your local burger
sensation on during flame joint and beg for a
head (usually sterilization. hairnet donation. (This
preceded by presumes that you don't
the crisp work there part-time to
scent of make up the balance of
melting hair) your salary, in which case
you should already have
your own hairnet.)
Lightheaded Sleep deprivation. Practice performing simple
giddiness lab techniques while
sleeping. You can pipett
water instead of chemical
to start with. Soon you
will find yourself able t
catch up on your sleep
while doing that
all-important mini-prep o
western blot! (This
suggestion strongly
endorsed by the
inexhaustable Dr. Kay.)
Lower back Centrifuge rotors Take sample with you on
pain any one of the numerous
spinning rides at the
amusement park and hold
the tube away from the
center of rotation as far
as possible. Ride for 3
hours or until nausea
ensues.
(*)Suitable replacement for all suggested treatments is to go home already!
chemistry
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From: "THE BIG PIG" <kcds1#NoSpam.Juno.com> Q: What's the most important thing to learn in chemistry? A: Never lick the spoon.
chemistry
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From: kkociba#NoSpam.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Keith J Kociba) Chemists are the *cleanest* people you'll ever meet... they wash their hands even *before* they go to the restroom!
chemistry
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From: jpauer#NoSpam.mtu.edu (JAMES PAUER) First law of Laboratorics: Hot glass and cold glass look alike!
chemistry
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From: MOHAMMED CHUNGGAZE <m.chunggaze#NoSpam.ic.ac.uk> I was helping out in a first year undergraduate practical class when i came across a girl who i thought maybe washing Potassium Bromide plates under the tap. i said to her 'i hope you are not washing those plates under the tap' she replied: 'NO..i,m using distilled water' !!!!
chemistry
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From: "Opel, Kerry" <kopel#NoSpam.y-city.net> In chemistry lab, one of my students accidentally hooked up her bunsen burner to the water line instead of the gas line. She didn't realize it, of course, until she turned it on.
chemistry
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From: Hmiddstaf#NoSpam.aol.com During grammar school science experiements into properties of different alcohols: The residue of each test was tipped down the sinks, which were grouped in threes. There were no U-bends, but each group of sinks emptied into a single box, which overflowed into the mains sewers. Presumably this was intended to retain things like droplets of mercury, which was not banned from use when I was 16. During the session, my bunsen went out, so I re-lit it with a splint lit from the teacher's bunsen. For safety's sake (!) I dropped the burning splint into the sink, intending to extinguish it with water, instead of waving it around in the alcohol fumes. A small blue flame disappeared down the plughole. Hum, thinks I, I wonder where that's going? I opened the cupboard 'neath the sink, only to find the drain box, full of alcohol, a roaring mass of flame. Shutting the doors, I called out, "Er, Sir..." just as the inch-thick wooden lids blew off the adjacent un-used sinks. Fortunately, the back-blast extinguished the flames under the cupboard, so the box only sagged slightly!
chemistry
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From: ol3#NoSpam.webtv.net (Oscar Lanzi III) Proof that chemistry and computer programming should never be mixed When I was in grad school, a classmate and I decided that a very dirty computer keyboard needed cleaning. We figured that water would be dangerous to the electical circuitry, so we elected to clean the keyboard with acetone. We were right; the electrical circuitry survived just fine. However, .. The keyboard never had to be cleaned again.
chemistry
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From: "Pavel Goudochnikov" <ear9pg#NoSpam.leeds.ac.uk> I've had my fair share of lab disasters, most of them fairly unimpressive. The one I am about to describe though was quality. I swear to God, this is a true story. We had a monday afternoon double hour and a half practical. On this particular occasion we were oxidizing ethanol to ethanoic acid. If I remember rightly you reflux it for twenty minutes with dilute HCl to get it to go to an aldehyde and then bash it with conc. sulphuric and sodium dichromate for another twenty minutes to make it go the rest of the way. Anyhow, there I was carefully following the instructions in the textbook. I got as far as the aldehyde. At this point the book said "Add 5g [or something like that] of Na2Cr2O7." I did that. Then it said "Now using a dropper pippette add 10ml of conc. sulphuric acid..." I did that. Then I read the rest of the line, and it said: "CAREFULLY, drop by drop over 10 minutes." I lifted my heead to see evil looking bubbles spewing forth from my pear-shaped flask beneath a growing tower of thick orange fumes. It looked like something off the set for Jeckyll and Hyde. I have to confess, I was quite pleased with myself.
chemistry
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From: Dixon-Jackson Kevin LE GB <kevin.dixon-jackson#NoSpam.cibasc.com> One of my fun moments was during Organic Spot Tests. Following sodium fusion (one of the most lethal lab procedures known to man) the young Prof asked a struggling student "Have you found anything yet?" Glamorous student "Erm... er...I...er... Its nearly Chlorine!" Prof "Don't be silly. It can't be NEARLY chlorine, that's like being...being... nearly pregnant, you can't be nearly pregnant!" Glamorous One "You don't get around much, do you!" Muffled sniggers all round.
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From: "Lotorto" <lotorto#NoSpam.ptd.net> I must say, the hardest I have ever laughed was in honors chem class in 10th grade during a lab... I will start by telling you that my high school chem lab is probably one of the oldest and worn out rooms that have ever existed...I say this because if it was any older it would have fallen apart....and my chemistry teacher wasn't much younger than the room either. So we were progressing on a lab which consisted of determining the specifc heat of aluminum and we were using the ancient sinks that were fixed in the room. There was this kid in my class, a genius, who was the funniest looking kid I've ever seen...he had a thick unibrow and he was really hairy...but anyways...we were using the sinks to fill beakers of water...and the kid was at one of the sinks that were a little "leaky". Every time you used it, it would spray out the side a little. Well I guess this time it sprayed a little more than usual and the kid thought that he should fix it instead of just using a different sink. He turned the base of the sink thinking that he would tighten it...instead it started to spray out more. Meanwhile my chem teacher, a silly old lady, yelled "Steven! turn the sink off! Its making a mess!" And so Steven, the kid, turned the base of the faucet back to how it was and it broke off in his hand. I looked over from across the room after I had heard the following: SNAP..."Steven! What did you do?!"..."Oh crap!"...SPLAAASH... Our chem room was temporarily turned into a water park...in place of where the sink was...there was now a large column of water shooting through the ceiling and spraying all over the entire room...the water was getting all over the hot plates that we were using in the lab and steam was rising all over the place...everyone ran back to our math class in a comical panic....and then five minutes later after we had told the story to everyone...my chem teacher came into the room soaking wet and with the funniest look in her eye....she looked at Steven through her crooked glasses and said "STEVEN? WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE SINK?" That was the funniest thing I've ever seen.
chemistry
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From: "Katrien De Gusseme" <katriendegusseme#NoSpam.hotmail.com> When I was studying for chemical engineer in Ghent (Belgium), we had a lot of Chinese PhD students. One of them was assisting in lab excersise we had with the topic destillation. The prof actually did all the explanation on how to operate the destillation column and the PhD student would assist with the analytical part. All went well (except maybe for the part where I burned my fingertips when trying to take a sample from the top plate) en we headed upstairs where the gaschromatograph was located. The PhD student listend to us explaining what we want to analyse and all the time he was nodding his head and saying "yes, yes, of course". Then he took our samples and disappeared. We waited some minutes, then heard him say 'oh shit'. The next thing we hear is the door being locked... nothing happens for about an hour, then the guy returns and hands uf a few sheets with graphs and numbers. "No problems" he says and disappears again. We've never seen him again.....
chemistry
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From: "Katrien De Gusseme" <katriendegusseme#NoSpam.hotmail.com>
Size does matter.
In my last year of chemical engineering we had a lab of analytical
techniques. Now, both my lab partner and I are very tall (I'm a woman and
1m80 tall, my lab partner is a 1m95 tall guy), and our lab assistant was a
woman of about 1m50. After the second class, she would bring a stool to
stand on whenever talking to us.
chemistry
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From: Cameron Neylon (cam#NoSpam.gu.uwa.edu.au) I think I can do better (and this is a true story) Heard in an NMR room in third year chemistry laboratory: "Is D2O flammable?"
chemistry
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From Nancy Holland How do you make ethyl fornicate? With ethanol!
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